What Olympic events were particularly great so far? Don't say why!

February 28, 2010 2:07 AM

Vancouver 2010: What should I watch? (No Spoilers!)

I've been downloading (non-live) chunks of the 2010 Olympics to watch at home with my wife, and we had a lot of fun with the figure skating portions this year, which had a lot of drama going in to them and had a lot of drama in the outcomes (at least in the individual events!) We may have had more fun, however, had we not known the outcomes in advance.

Can you recommend any other portions of the Olympics so far that ended up being particularly great, without telling us what happened at the end? (Any background that was available before the event actually happened is of course much appreciated; we're just trying to simulate the live experience by not reading the news :)

posted by sdis to media & arts (19 answers total)

Definitely watch the following:

Men's Figure Skating Free Finals (Evan Lysecek vs. Evgeni Plushenko was epic, if that wasn't part of the figure skating you already watched. Theirs are towards the end of the enormously long men's free segment.)

Men's Snowboard Halfpipe Finals. Short but sweet.

Men's and women's snowboard cross, semis and finals. Hell, even the heats. This event is just completely nuts--four people barreling down a crazy course and tons of intense crashes and near wins. Men's finals are amazing. AMAZING.

Ski cross, as well, to a lesser extent.

Women's downhill, finals. Talk about agony of defeat. This coverage on NBC was just full of heartbreaking, wince-inducing falls, and some great performances at breakneck speeds. Absolutely incredible.

Women's giant slalom finals, 1st day. Then 2nd day. Craziness abounds.

That's about all I'd recommend off-hand.

Man, I've watched a LOT of Olypmics this year. This was all just off the top of my head, and all stuff I actually watched. I also watched some biathlon, curling, hockey, aerials, bobsledding, and luge, but meh. Bobsleigh women's finals had a pretty nasty looking crash, and luge had that devastating and tragic actual loss-of-life crash in training, but you have to be into those for the rest of the footage. Didn't catch women's figure skating, MUCH of the pairs (though definitely the parts that mattered), or skeleton at all.
posted by disillusioned at 2:17 AM on February 28, 2010

Women's speed-skating team pursuit was well-worth the time for interestingness!
posted by Sallyfur at 3:52 AM on February 28, 2010

We've been Tivoing the Olympics because between having an 8 month old and trying to finish my PhD I'm lucky if I can watch 1 hour of tv a day, but we've really enjoyed short track skating, snow board cross (such a crazy sport), and oddly, cross country skiing, which I realize isn't usually a thrill fest but many of the races were so close, plus watching Slovenia's Perta Majdic compete after falling into a ravine in qualifiers and break 4 ribs and puncture a lung was something else!
posted by katers890 at 4:17 AM on February 28, 2010

All of the ones already mentioned, plus women's cross country ski 18 mile race. exciting finish. Any race with Apolo Ohno speed skating. I've watched a lot this year too, Mr. Hexatron has ignored the whole thing.

Hexatron's wife
posted by hexatron at 4:23 AM on February 28, 2010

I love skiing but generally never watch any winter olympics. However ...

Ski cross. Oh my god. Completely batshit insane and utterly compelling.

I plan to watch snowboard cross tonight before it expires on BBC iPlayer.
posted by mr_silver at 4:43 AM on February 28, 2010

The first period of the Men's Hockey USA vs. Finland was a lot of fun. I missed the rest of the game, so I can't say how it ended. That first period was great though. Even if you don't like Hockey.
posted by TooFewShoes at 6:45 AM on February 28, 2010

These are great! Thanks!
posted by sdis at 6:47 AM on February 28, 2010

Besides what's been mentioned above, I really enjoyed the top-ranked women's and pairs figure skating -- just try to catch the last few skaters + for pair skating the very first group of skaters on the ice.
I loved pretty much all the short track. What a crazy, crazy sport! Something exciting happened in pretty much every race, though if I had to pick I'd go for the 1000 m and 500 m.
posted by peacheater at 7:19 AM on February 28, 2010

The men's speed skating 500 was a classic, as was yesterday's snowboard parallel giant slalom.
posted by Hiker at 7:44 AM on February 28, 2010

Women's Snowboard Half Pipe was amazing. There was some serious all out effort all around.
posted by advicepig at 8:24 AM on February 28, 2010

The women's gold medal match in curling, between Canada and Sweden, was great, dramatic and down to the wire.
posted by pasici at 8:47 AM on February 28, 2010 [2 favorites]

The Hockey final this afternoon is going to be pretty exciting. In the preliminaries the US beat Canada to become the #1 seed in the final round. Both teams fought their way through the final round-of-8 and are going to meet again today, and the Canadians want revenge.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 9:20 AM on February 28, 2010 [2 favorites]

The women's gold medal match in curling, between Canada and Sweden, was great, dramatic and down to the wire.

I came in here to say this. I'd never seen curling before, but I was GLUED to the TV watching this game.
posted by deadmessenger at 9:20 AM on February 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

I watched the men's curling gold medal match on CNBC. It was surprisingly fun to watch, though I confess I still have little understanding of the rules.
posted by theora55 at 11:18 AM on February 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

I loved pretty much all the short track. What a crazy, crazy sport! Something exciting happened in pretty much every race, though if I had to pick I'd go for the 1000 m and 500 m.

Women's 3000m relay is also pretty good.
posted by smackfu at 11:53 AM on February 28, 2010

I'd also like to recommend the women's gold medal curling match.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 12:24 PM on February 28, 2010

Snowboarding, pick one or all. Aerials. Men's Gold Medal hockey (Oh Em Gee!). _Both_ Curling finals. Ladies' free skate -- *everybody* skated really, really well.
posted by jlkr at 3:21 PM on February 28, 2010

Short track speedskating, specifically the men's 5000m relay final.

The US - Canada gold medal game in men's hockey was as tense as any I've ever seen.

Either of the curling finals, but the women's was definitely closer and more down-to-the-wire. Not sure what some people find difficult to understand about it. It's essentially shuffleboard. And the more you watch the more strategy you can see.

Ski cross and snowboard cross.
posted by fso at 5:13 PM on February 28, 2010

Obligatory: Today's gold medal men's hockey game. It was a nailbiter.
posted by The Lurkers Support Me in Email at 6:25 PM on February 28, 2010 [1 favorite]